“Sun Microsystems Inc. next Tuesday is expected to
disclose plans to acquire office productivity software vendor Star
Division Corp., and next month plans to unveil its new
thin-client, code-named ‘Corona’…”
“To some, a Star Division buy announced by itself appears to be
an attempt to compete head-to-head with office productivity leader
Microsoft Corp. ‘It looks like [Sun] is doing a [Oracle Corp. CEO]
Larry Ellison, going after Microsoft on its own ground,’ said Don
DePalma, president of Common Sense Advisory, a Chelmsford,
Mass.-based market researcher.”
“Sources close to Sun said the company was severely punished in
the past for its half-baked thin-client strategy, which consisted
of the JavaStation thin-client hardware and the JavaOS operating
system, but no applications.
Star Division, Fremont, Calif., could bring those applications
to Sun thin-clients, yet it appears the company would rather
play-up the competition with Microsoft, sources and analysts
speculated.”